BABYLON AND PERSIA

I04MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.opments as given in the rest of the Gathas maywell be said to be but commentary. The Dualismhere announced is absolute : the two Spirits aretwins, not hostile in the beginning, nor separated,and together create the world, material and spiritual,visible and invisible ; the result is of necessity a mix¬ture of opposites, for we can know a thing only byits contrary : how should we know light, warmth,health, but from their contrast with darkness, cold,sickness ? Life, then, must be balanced by Death ;Truth by Falsehood ; in other words. Good by Evil.So far there is no right or wrong, only necessity.But now comes the choice. Notu the twin spirits,having each taken his part, become the " Spirit whichis all Life " and the " Spirit which is all Death "(life and death being considered the supreme expres-,sions of Good and Evil), to be foes for evermore ;and now begins the warfare in vvhich nothing is in¬different or purposeless, but every move tells for oneor the other, and in which all mankind, without ex¬ception, "each man for himself," must freely choosehis side, fight on it, and abide the consequences. Itis noteworthy that even the daevas, the uncompro¬misingly abhorred fiends and demons of later Maz¬deism, are not presented by the prophet as evil origi¬nally and in themselves, but only from the evil choicethey make when, as free agents, the choice is beforethem as before the two Supreme Twins. So absoluteis his belief in the free-will and responsibility ofevery being, whether of the spirit world or the ma¬terial world.- 9, Little could be added to the great Declaration